PRIESTS AND PATRONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY .sx by LEO GOOCH .sx IN 1834 the Rev. William Riddell warned Bishop Penswick to take care when dealing with the Catholic gentry on chaplaincy business because they could be " very ticklish and nice " .sx As the younger brother of a Northumbrian squire he was in a good position to know but , in any case , the Church had long been aware of lay susceptibilities in these matters .sx Some sixty years previously Bishop Challoner had reminded Bishop Walton that the gentry took particular exception to the clergy " meddling with their temporals " .sx Furthermore , as the northern bishops well knew , the relationship between a patron and his chaplain was far from amicable in an embarrassingly large number of cases in the eighteenth century .sx In 1786 Henry Rutter , a young chaplain in Northumberland , told his uncle Robert Banister , also a priest , that he had " a most despicable opinion of our Catholic nobility and gentry " .sx Banister was of a like mind , and theirs was not an uncommon view among the northern clergy at that time .sx It was , moreover , usually reciprocated .sx In addition to the problem of personal animosity and squabbling over ecclesiastical jurisdiction , the mission in north-east England under seigneurial rule was beset by financial instability and insecurity of tenure .sx Since over half of the mission stations in the region were chaplaincies , a majority of priests and Catholic gentlemen were living in some degree of disharmony with each other , which not only made daily life something of an ordeal , but it inhibited missionary development .sx The aim of this paper , then , is to examine the somewhat chequered social history of the northern chaplaincy from , roughly , the Revolution of 1688 to the Restoration of the English Hierarchy in 1850 .sx One chaplaincy in which almost everything that could go wrong did , was Stonecroft Farm , and it is appropriate to outline briefly the main events in its history as the main statement of the theme .sx Stonecroft Farm was a property of some three hundred acres , six miles north-west of Hexham in Northumberland .sx It was bequeathed by Ursula Mountney to Lord William Widdrington in 1680 , and she charged the estate with a yearly payment of £20 as the salary of the chaplain , who was to be a Dominican or a Franciscan " if a priest of any such order can conveniently be had " .sx Although the Dominicans had provided chaplains at Stonecroft some years before , Mrs. Mountney preferred Franciscans and at the time of her death a friar occupied the post .sx When he died , the Franciscans sent a replacement but the Dominicans objected ; the trustee of the fund compromised with Widdrington that the incumbent Franciscan could be left in place for one year but that a Dominican should then take over .sx Widdrington , however , appointed another Franciscan and nothing was said .sx So things remained for ten years , that is until Widdrington sold the estate to Thomas Gibson .sx The ownership of Callaly Castle changed hands at the same time , a combination of circumstances that normally would not have any connection , but on this occasion the wife of John Clavering wanted her Jesuit brother to be chaplain at the castle .sx Clavering therefore dismissed his late father's Dominican chaplain , George Gibson , brother of the new owner of Stonecroft Farm .sx Being out of place , Gibson naturally turned to his brother who obligingly discharged the Franciscan Constantine Jackson to make way for him .sx When the latter appealed to the Vicar Apostolic , Bishop Smith declined to become involved because , he said , " Mr Gibson is master of his own house and may or may not admit Mr Jackson as he pleases " .sx But that was not the end of the matter , for the bishop was again petitioned by several local Catholic gentlemen who said that whenever neighbouring Catholics applied to Father Gibson , he directed them to " Father Jackson who has , ever since his removal from Stonecroft , been destitute of any certain place of abode or maintenance " .sx Again the bishop declined to intervene with the Gibsons .sx Instead , he wrote to the Franciscan Provincial to have the displaced friar removed from the locality altogether .sx Bishop Smith was probably more shrewd than callous in acting this way , for he would know , as his petitioners might not , that another Gibson had been ordained as a Dominican priest shortly before , and that he would obtain his family's patronage , as in fact it turned out .sx At any rate , the Dominican tenure of the Stonecroft chaplaincy seemed secure .sx The family lost property as a consequence of George Gibson's participation in the Fifteen and the chaplain was forced to go into hiding for a while .sx Fortunately , George Gibson predeceased his father and Stonecroft Farm was thus saved from forfeiture .sx The farm passed to another George Gibson in 1720 ; he was aged nine and during his minority the farm became the residence of Jasper Gibson , his great - uncle .sx The chaplain at that time was the Dominican Peter Thompson .sx Thompson did not get on with Gibson , and he declared that he had suffered a great deal at Jasper's hands over many years .sx The chapel and priest's room were in a farmyard building , and Thompson complained that geese and hens were driven " promiscuously " under the chapel where they made such a noise that he was much disturbed and could scarce hear himself speak .sx He also recorded the events which took place one Sunday morning in May 1721 when Gibson " fell upon me like a hell dog in the presence of his Protestant servants and others that were come to prayers " .sx Within a year of Jasper's arrival , Thompson wrote in his journal :sx " after more than the usual abuse , perceiving I could not live easy at Stonecroft , I went away and left the Gibsons " .sx He moved into Hexham , and the farm became a supply mission for the next thirteen years attended , no doubt unwillingly and uneasily by Father Thompson .sx There happened to be a Franciscan at Swinburne Castle when Thompson left Stonecroft Farm .sx He would have been well aware of the terms of Mrs. Mountney's will and of Thompson's discharge ; it must have seemed an ideal opportunity to recover the chaplaincy for his order , and he broached the matter with the trustee .sx After a series of meetings , however , the latter declared once and for all in favour of the Dominicans , and there the matter rested ; the Dominicans resumed their residential tenure at the farm after Peter Thompson's retirement .sx The chaplaincy came to an end in 1815 when the family fell on hard times .sx George Gibson had mortgaged the estate for pounds5,000 some years before but he could no longer sustain the debt and he sold the property to a kinsman .sx He too got into financial difficulties and his affairs were put into the hands of trustees .sx The first economy was to dispense with the chaplain , but that was not sufficient , and six years later the farm was sold to Protestants .sx So ended the Stonecroft Farm mission ; in 1828 it was reported that " few Dissenters and fewer Catholics " lived in the locality .sx The history of the Stonecroft Farm mission exemplifies most of the disadvantages of the chaplaincy system .sx It shows the difficulties that could arise over ambiguously drafted wills and when patrons became involved in politics .sx It shows that the power of the lay patron over the chaplaincy was supreme ; the availability of the mission station depended on the continued solvency of the family , and security of tenure in a chaplaincy depended entirely on goodwill .sx Finally , it showed that when clerical rivalries arose , and particularly when regulars were involved , the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic was limited ; indeed , he was effectively impotent in chaplaincy matters , yet the majority of his priests were chaplains .sx The Stonecroft Farm case is perhaps exceptionally unfortunate , but in the course of the eighteenth century one or more circumstance of a similar kind arose in almost every chaplaincy in the north-east .sx Dilston Hall , Widdrington Castle , Eslington Hall and Coxhoe Hall all closed as a direct result of the patronal family's involvement in the Fifteen , and their chapels were lost to the mission .sx Sir Edward Swinburne fell out with his chaplain , expelled him from Capheaton Hall and forbade him to visit the chapel unless specifically invited .sx John Swinburne succeeded him as sixth baronet in 1786 ; he immediately renounced Catholicism , dismissed the chaplain and demolished the chapel .sx He married a niece of the Duke of Northumberland , through whose patronage he obtained a seat in the Commons .sx Charles Brandling of Felling and Gosforth also married a Protestant lady and shortly afterwards renounced the Catholic religion .sx He later became Member of Parliament for Newcastle on Tyne without , it has been remarked , " greatly affecting the course of history .sx " .sx There are other examples of a mixed marriage leading to a dislocation of the mission .sx In 1772 Margaret Thornton , with her sister joint-owner of Netherwitton Hall , married Walter Trevelyan , a staunch Methodist .sx He promptly invited the Catholic chaplain to remove himself and his chapel out of the Hall and into a disused tower-house at Witton Shields a mile and a half away .sx Some years later it was rumoured that his heir might become a Catholic , and the Vicar Apostolic called on him .sx But Trevelyan senior had two Protestant clergymen in the house all that summer to dissuade the young man from taking such a step .sx The conversion did not take place ; Trevelyan became " a red-hot Methodistical preacher " instead .sx He later abrogated the family's bequests for the upkeep of the mission and closed the chapel .sx Thomas Swinburne of Pontop Hall married a Protestant lady .sx While she agreed to allow the chapel to remain open , she refused to allow the chaplain to live in the Hall , and in a little while the mission moved out altogether to new premises in Brooms .sx Considerable disruption to the mission was caused by the extravagance of some gentry families .sx In 1784 Ralph Peter Clavering had become so indebted as a result of his expenditure on renovations to Callaly Castle over thirty years that he was forced to go abroad where the living was easier .sx His brother , a secular priest , was left with the management of both temporal and spiritual affairs at Callaly .sx As has been pointed out , Clavering was in a dilemma ; his temporal self had to reduce the size of the Catholic community , while his spiritual self was presumably devoted to increasing it .sx His temporal self won , for the congregation at Callaly Castle fell steadily , and by the time of Catholic Emancipation it was barely a third of what it had been in 1767 .sx Ralph Clavering's grand-son returned to the castle in the 1830s to resume the development of the estate .sx Since this involved demolishing the village to open up the view from the morning room , not surprisingly the congregation fell even further .sx Edward Clavering learned nothing from his kinsman's experience .sx Despite limited means he sold off a number of farms to finance the rebuilding of Berrington Hall .sx The estate was exhausted by this venture and what was left of it was dissolved in 1816 , and the chapel was lost .sx Henry Witham came into the possession of three estates with long - standing chaplaincies - Cliffe , Hardwick and Lartington .sx Cliffe and Hardwick had to be sold in the 1820s to pay off Witham's gambling debts .sx The Duke of Cleveland bought Hardwick and the estate shortly began to yield fabulous quantities of coal in the newly-developing coalfields of Durham , justifying the rueful comment of Monsignor Thomas Witham that , had it not been for the extravagance of his father , he would have been the richest commoner in England .sx The monsignor did quite well as it was because he inherited Lartington .sx He was something of a bon viveur and socialite , but he had the village inn closed down .sx The mission at Hesleyside was endangered late in the eighteenth century , " for what with the penal laws , cockering up the Pretender , ancestral extravagance and , alas !sx the undying vice of drink " , the estate was brought to the verge of ruin .sx Fortunately , William Charlton , " the inebriate and hardly responsible Squire " , as his grand-daughter called him , married the redoubtable Margaret Fenwick , and she set about the recovery of the estate , but it meant the closure of the chapel for several years .sx